One ...Body

This morning I got out of bed and continued to breathe since there was just the right amount of oxygen for me to go about my business as usual. I looked out the window of my bedroom and noticed that the sun was just rising above the eastern horizon the same way it did the morning I was born. My day, my world and my universe are filled with a design that I have largely taken for granted my entire life. The precision of it all is really quite meticulous and miraculous. It is as if it was put in just the right place with just the right amount of stuff to operate in just the right way at all the right times. WOW!

The same power and wisdom that put all the surroundings of my day in place is doing His thing in the Church as well. He has created this living institution to accomplish what needs to be done to pass His story and gifts from generation to generation. One of the most amazing things about the Church is that it is made up of millions of people that are unique, one of a kinds in many ways and messy. The individual members of the Church don’t have nearly the precision and dependability of the solar system, yet it fits together perfectly because God accomplishes just what He said He would do.

God gives each of us an invitation to take our place in the Church. Another name for the Church is the Body of Christ. The God who designed the universe so perfectly wants us to understand that He is able through His wisdom and power to ultimately do things perfectly in and through the Church even though it is composed of imperfect people like you and me. It is referred to as a body because of the many numerous parts that work together to accomplish the tasks that need to be done.

So, the really amazing thing is that God accomplishes exactly what he sets out to do while using unpredictable, inconsistent, even selfish people - like me - to compose the Body of Christ. When I bring all of this together I find myself in a place of worship, thankfulness that I have a uniquely particular place in the Church and a sense of peace because God is always God!

You have been creatively and uniquely designed by God Almighty for this time and this place. You have a very particular set of gifts, resources and contexts that Oak Hill needs to faithfully be God’s people today right here and right now!

• …, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.  (Ephesians 4.15-16)

Joined and growing together,
Pastor Nick